In the Israeli investigation, testimonies were said to have been collected from “a large number of IDF soldiers and officers who were involved in the planning and execution of the attack.”
Its conclusion ultimately rested on this finding of fact: that the place in which the boys were killed had “long been known as a compound belonging to Hamas’s Naval Police and Naval Force (including naval commandos), and which was utilized exclusively by militants,” wrote Lt. Col. Lerner.
It was for this reason, the Advocate General ruled, that the Israeli military could reasonably assume that any people in the compound were militants. It was a matter of mistaken identity – a “tragic accident” – he said.
However, the compound in question, which investigators described as spanning “the length of the breakwater of the Gaza City seashore,” was used more by fisherman than by anyone else.
As satellite images show, numerous boats are tied up along the perimeter of the compound. They are fishing boats, not Hamas naval vessels. That is the case today, and it was the case last July 16 when the attack in question took place.
Any people in this area would most likely be fishermen, or children, not militants.
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